To Try to Net Killer, Police Ask A Small Town's Men for DNA

By PAM BELLUCK; Katie Zezima contributed reporting from Boston for this article.

Published: January 10, 2005

In an unusual last-ditch move to find clues to the three-year-old killing of a freelance fashion writer, police investigators are trying to get DNA samples from every man in this Cape Cod hamlet, all 790 or so, or as many as will agree.

Raising concerns among civil libertarians and prompting both resistance and support from men in Truro, the state and local police began collecting the genetic samples last week, visiting delicatessens, the post office and even the town dump to politely ask men to cooperate. Legal experts said the sweeping approach had been used only in limited instances before in the United States -- although it is more widely used in Europe -- and in at least one of those cases it prompted a lawsuit.

Sgt. David Perry of the Truro Police Department and other law enforcement authorities here say that the program is voluntary but that they will pay close attention to those who refuse to provide DNA.

''We're trying to find that person who has something to hide,'' Sergeant Perry said.

The killing was the most notorious in this resort community in memory. Christa Worthington, 46, who had lived in New York and Paris and London before retreating to the quiet sea-stung town, was found stabbed to death in her bungalow here on Jan. 6, 2002, her 2-year-old daughter, Ava, clinging to her body.

Semen was found on the body, and in the last three years the police have investigated a former boyfriend and other men, including a married man who is Ava's father.

''All those people are ruled out at this point,'' Sergeant Perry said.

A $25,000 reward failed to crack the case, which generated international publicity and a lurid book, ''Invisible Eden,'' by Maria Flook, with explicit details of Ms. Worthington's love interests and violent death.

So the police sought help from the F.B.I., which said it thought the killer had Truro ties and suggested trying to match the semen in a global genetic canvass.

''The person we're looking for is the one who deposited the DNA'' by having sex with Ms. Worthington before she died, Sergeant Perry said. ''We're not saying that this is the killer. What we're saying is we need to talk to this person, who may be just the last person to see her alive.''

Stopping in the Highland Grill in Truro on a frigid Friday, Jeff Evans plunked down $2 for a brownie almost as big as a paperback. Then, at the prompting of a state police detective and a Truro police officer parked at the grill's counter, Mr. Evans, 46, a pest exterminator, wiped the inside of his cheek with a lollipop-like cotton swab, capturing a smidgen of genetic evidence to give to the government men. Sam Scherer, 18, another Highland Grill patron, had already done the same thing. So had Jerrid Bearse, 20.

While many residents have cooperated, some have complained that the DNA sweep is coercive.

''I think it's outrageous,'' said Dick Seed, 44, a Truro sign painter who called the American Civil Liberties Union to complain.

''I really think they're usurping my civil rights,'' said Mr. Seed, who may know something about DNA because his father is Dr. Richard Seed, the eccentric physicist who drew worldwide attention by announcing seven years ago that he planned to clone humans. ''Are they going to chase down everyone who didn't give a sample? It kind of sounds like Stalin's secret police. If there's a murder committed in a restroom, are they going to be asking for a urine sample?''

Mass DNA collection drives, as needle-in-a-haystack as they might sound, have yielded results in criminal investigations in England and Germany. Six years ago in Germany, for example, authorities investigating the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl collected DNA samples from 16,400 men, a sweep believed to be the largest to date. DNA from one man matched the evidence, prompting him to confess his guilt.

In this country, the technique has been tried in a few places, generally with less success. It is usually used in a more targeted way than in Truro.

In Baton Rouge, La., in 2003, authorities trying to find a serial killer took swabs from 1,200 white men who drove white pickup trucks, but the dragnet did not yield a suspect; a black man was later arrested using other investigative methods. In Omaha last year, the police, searching for a serial rapist, sought DNA from about three dozen black men who worked for the Omaha Public Power District. And in a rape investigation in Charlottesville, Va., the police over the last two years have asked for swabs from about 200 black men.

These investigations have been contentious, especially when the authorities hold on to the DNA of people found to have no connection to the crime. Baton Rouge law enforcement agencies are being sued by nearly two dozen of the 1,200 men they tested; the men want their DNA samples destroyed and their genetic information removed from a databank that can be used in investigations of other crimes.

''They're not very effective and they're certainly not voluntarily,'' said Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty project at the American Civil Liberties Union. ''It's either give a sample or you're a suspect. It turns the classic American concept of innocent until proven guilty on its head.''